Our Programme and Curriculum

Submitted by admin on Tue, 09/11/2012 - 14:43

At Saigon Kids we view curriculum as everything that happens during our time together with the children. We believe that each moment offers an opportunity to explore relationships and to create a community that nurtures children, teachers, and families. Each moment holds a range of feelings, interests and opportunities to learn. There are always questions to pursue, hypotheses to investigate, and discoveries to celebrate.

Curriculum happens all day, in every routine, action, and interaction, and through the careful arrangement of our learning environments. We begin each school year with attention to creating a simple, beautiful environment, one that welcomes, invites curiosity, and inspires exploration. We also carefully organise our environments to bring children together, to invite social interactions, and to help everyone develop a sense of security and belonging. Our environments are flexible and offer open ended materials that empower children to make choices, engage in play, and explore their interests at their own pace and levels of ability. This reflects our belief in the importance of both the social and physical environments for supporting children’s learning, and their development and well being.

The role of the teacher in our programs is to notice, recognise and respond to the learning that is occurring as children play and explore their environment. We observe, listen closely to their interactions, ideas, and questions, and plan for further learning opportunities. The curriculum therefore ‘emerges ‘as teachers and children work together exploring, investigating and discovering. A play and emergent approach to curriculum motivates children to engage in learning, and allows for the acquisition of skills and knowledge in meaningful contexts. Most importantly, we believe our curriculum supports children’s dispositions for lifelong learning. These dispositions, or underlying ‘patterns of behaviour’ are foundational for learning across all developmental domains, and considered essential for living and learning in 21st century education.

In summary, we believe that children are motivated to learn in social and physical environments that allow and encourage them to pursue their passions and questions. Our role is to deepen and extend that learning, and to foster each child’s belief in themselves as capable, creative and confident learners.